Writings

Reader, I write to you of blood and blistering heat. I write to you of home, of my grandmother’s bread, of falcons on the roof and the cries of the ice cream man wheeling about the firīj. Small fists sticky with ḥinna, lemonrubbed bright red in the daylight, and blackbrown cockroaches scurrying across the kitchen floor. Muḥalabiyya milkcold in every summer fridge, canvas tents hoisted under winter stars, and I can even now hear the steady whirring of mamaʿoda’s sewing machine and the chirping of freshly hatched chicks butteryellow in the dusky ḥadīqah (…)

For your perusal, dear friend.

“mama sarah and me” 

larbpublab.org/2025/07/24/mama-sarah-and-me/

PubLab, Los Angeles Review of Books (2025)

  • "Our words come from the very place of all life, the spirits who swirl around us, teaching us, cajoling us, chastising us, loving us."

    Beth Brant, Writing as Witness

  • "Everything one comes across—each incident, book, novel, life episode, story, person, news clip—is a coffee bean that will be crushed, ground up, mixed with a touch of cardamom, sometimes a tiny pinch of salt, boiled thrice with sugar, and served as a piping-hot tale.”

    Rabih Alameddine, The Hakawati

  • "In this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in grass. Love it. Love it hard."

    Toni Morrison, Beloved

  • "In order for me to write poetry that isn’t political/ I must listen to the birds/ and in order to hear the birds/ the warplanes must be silent."

    Marwan Makhoul, “On Poetry and Politics”